SIGA Special Session: Female Leadership in Sport, Washington DC

This Special Session will be hosted by SIGA in partnership with Mastercard, the National Fitness Foundation, George Washington University, and Octagon.

The Special Session will address the importance of Female Leadership in Sport, its important role in promoting good governance and, in particular, diversity of thought in a fast, ever-evolving dynamic sector, as well as the challenges facing future female leaders and the best solutions to pierce the gender glass ceiling.

This SIGA Special Session is part of a wider initiative that was launched in Paris on 7 March 2018 to promote female leadership in sports organisations as part of SIGA’s Universal Standards on Good Governance. For more details on the SIGA Global Female Mentorship Programme please click here.

Whether in sports bodies, marketing, broadcasting, sponsorship or in policy, women remain underrepresented in decision-making roles, which has a knock-on effect on how the sport is run and governed. What top tips do panellists have to get more women into those roles? How to ensure that change is long-lasting, comprehensive, and from root to branch? And what kind of change is possible with governance structures that are more diverse and representative?

Emma McClarkin

Member of the European Parliament

Holli Richmond

Executive Director, President’s Council on Sport, Fitness & Nutrition

Katie Simmonds

SIGA General Counsel & Senior Director of Global Partnerships

Melanie Le Grande

Vice President, Social Responsibility, Major League Baseball

Sabrina Perel

Vice President, Chief Compliance Officer, National Football League

Amanda Tischler

Capitals VP of Marketing, Monumental Sports

15:50 Coffee Break / Networking Session

16:05 Panel 2: Women in Sports Business: Creating Value.

As more and more women are present in strategic conversations, does this impact the direction of the company and how they spend their money? This panel brings together female leaders in the sports business, who will share whether and how women bring nuance to strategic discussions and where they see the future.

Ling-Ling Nie

Chief Compliance Officer & Assistant General Counsel, Panasonic

Alison Giordano

Vice President, Global Sponsorship & Content Marketing, Mastercard

Anna Blanchard

Senior Manager, Partnership Marketing, Major League Soccer

Christine Franklin

Senior Vice President, Octagon

Sandra Monteiro

Chief of Global Business Strategies and Branding, NHLPA

16:55 Panel 3: Shaping the Future. Finding Allies.

This panel will discuss how to ensure the conversation continues outside of safe spaces. How do we bring more male allies on board? What wider societal shifts need to happen? How do we make the conversation more mainstream and avoid talking to ourselves? What can we, as a collective do – within 6 months or 12 months?